The Emergence of Local Norms in Networks

Mary Burke, Gary Fournier () and Kislaya Prasad

No wp2006_02_01, Working Papers from Department of Economics, Florida State University

Abstract: We develop an explanation of the emergence of local norms, and theassociated phenomenon of geographical variation in behavior.Individuals are assumed to interact locally with neighbors in anenvironment with a network externality. Although many patterns ofbehavior are possible, the dispersed interactive choices of agentsare shown to select behavior that is locally uniform but globallydiverse. The range of applications of the theory includes regionalvariation in the practice of medicine, technology choice, andcorruption. The framework is also useful for further developing ourunderstanding of important phenomena like lock-in, criticalthresholds, and contagion.

Keywords: local norms; conventions; social networks; regional variation; local interaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2006-02
Note: This paper has been accepted in Complexity journal (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/38804) and is not available on-line from RePEc.
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Working Paper: The Emergence of Local Norms in Networks (2005)
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